Apr23a

April 23, 2003, Nilaveli, Sri Lanka.

Kandy is Sri Lanka's second largest city and is considered to be the cultural heartland of the island. It was once the capital and the royals were able to fight off most foreign invaders for a long time, before they finally succumbed to the �Britishers� in 1815. It is located in the hills, around a small artificial lake and known by Buddhists around Asia for its Temple of the Tooth (Buddha's...).

We used Kandy as a base for various excursions during the next week or so. One day was spent checking out the town, very busy with shopping crowds. It was getting close to the Tamil and Sinhalese New Year, when everyone buys each other new clothes. So Fouzia bought nice material to make a dress and Papy got a new pair of pants. We had lunch at a waterfront restaurant (the usual rice & curry) and visited a small crafts centre where someone made a tiny elephant out of brass for me with my name engraved. We also saw how batik was made, an art form that was imported from Indonesia. That evening we attended a spectacular Kandyan dance
Performance. Men, dressed in amazing outfits, did all sorts of acrobatic dance passes to the beat of drums. The show ended with a fire dance, where two guys walked barefoot on burning coals. I couldn't believe my eyes!

The next day we started off early (7 am), heading north to Sigiriya. Not early enough since we got stuck in traffic getting out of town. You see, all kids are brought to school by private transport and the schools are everywhere and all start at the same time. Anyways, a few hours later we got to our destination, paid the steep
US$ 15/each (for foreigners) entrance and started our hike up. Sigiriya used to be a fortified palace on top of a huge granite boulder, which can now be accessed by a system of stairs and ladders bolted to the rock. An hour climb in the blazing heat brought us to the top but all that was left to see are the foundations, the original wooden buildings had long since disappeared. I was told that only religious buildings, like the ones at Angkor Wat, were made out of stone). Nevertheless from there we had a fantastic view of the surrounding plains. Some of the ruins gave us a vague idea of how the place must have looked like 1500 years ago. It must certainly have been

impossible to conquer. Going down was easier and on the way we passed apassed a couple of busloads of uniformed Muslim students ("Asalaam Maleikum!"). And as usual, Raja waited for us in the shade of a tree.

Our next destination was Dambulla and its cave temples. First we needed to have lunch and our guidebooks mentioned the Culture Club Resort as being well worth the extra money. Well, it was nice, just like a Club Med, with airy, high ceilinged open spaces and courteous staff. After cocktails we went for the sumptuous buffet near the beautiful pool. Being among the first ones we had the place virtually to ourselves and everyone was happy to "dig in". We had barely room left for deserts, but they were just too good to be left out! After this feast the pool looked very inviting and everyone decided that to stay there, except Papa who wanted to see more temples. So he went with Raja to do another climb in the heat of the day (not as steep, though). At the top of the hill were 4 or 5 shallow caves filled we numerous Buddha statues and wall paintings. The place was deserted (except for the tame monkeys) and dimly lit so it had a special, eerie atmosphere. Meanwhile, back at the pool, I had a wonderful time swimming with Papy in the pool, while Mommy and Fouzia just relaxed. Back in Kandy we ended that day with a nice meal with wine at the Queen's hotel.

On April 11 Papy and Fouzia were going back to Colombo while we would stay in Kandy (they would catch a flight back to France 2 days later). Before splitting the plan was to visit a famous elephant orphanage and rehabilitation centre halfway between and we got there just in time to see how the baby elephants were bottle-fed. That was so cute! You could walk around the area with lots of elephants everywhere, and I felt sorry to see even one limping because he had stepped on a landmine... The most impressive sight was undoubtedly to see sixty odd elephants (!!) being herded down the road to the river to have their daily communal bath. You know I love elephants so this was a very special time for me. After that it was time to say goodbye to Papy and Fouzia, who continued with the van to Colombo. So it was back to the 3 of us. We found seats on a A/C bus back to Kandy, but getting into town was impossible due to extremely heavy traffic. So we just walked the last kilometer. We checked into the colonial Queen's Hotel, right in the centre, and I went straight to the nice outdoor pool. And that's where I spent a lot of time the next couple of days.